In the light of the moon that is above us both, I can see that Gideon is just a regular man. There’s nothing monstrous about his appearance; there’s nothing about him that suggests he can disappear into shadows, nothing about his body that says he is powerful. I’m not really sure what I am anymore, though—whether I’m a monster or whether I’m just a woman, or both. I stay watching Gideon in silence for just a few moments, my breathing calm, my senses leveled out, smelling the faint scent of Gideon through the damp smell of puddles between us. It’s strange; I’m completely relaxed. For the first time since arriving in London, I feel like I am exactly where I am meant to be. My legs have carried me to Gideon; the city that has so often failed me has delivered him to me. A sense I didn’t know I possess picks up on something about him that makes him glow as if he is a piece of radium. On the air, the smell of something sweet. A voice in my head tells me it’s his immorality, and it smells like cake. I step out of the shadows. When Gideon turns around and sees me, he jumps.

“Oh!” he says. He looks relieved to see that it’s just me. He walks up to me. I stand still. “Lydia?” he says. He looks at his watch. He’s smiling. I suppose he hasn’t noticed anything off about me: that I’m completely drenched, that my color is probably strange, that I most definitely smell of milk that is slightly sour now, that my mouth is open and that my teeth are showing. “You’re a bit late!” he says, and he laughs.

I want to say something. But I also can’t think of anything to say, and I can’t speak anyway. So, I just smile at him, instead, and he smiles at me. Then he lifts his hand up and places it on my arm—the same hand that touched my body on the stairs.

As soon as he does this, I feel like I can sense Gideon in a new dimension. I can feel the presence of not just his person, but of his life that has existed for however many decades before this moment, and that could last for a few more after. It’s strange; his life presents itself to me as if it is a soft but solid thing—as soft and easy for me to slice through as butter. The edge of my own life has always felt so far in the future, so impossible for me to tempt closer to where in my life I am now, but I see very clearly the edge of Gideon’s life. It’s in me, in my teeth, in my body, which could drain him entirely of everything that keeps him moving forward. His neck is close to me; he’s brought it to me himself; he has given me his life. It’s just there, inches from my face.